Gundam, it's a Gundam!

Check out what I snagged at a yard sale last Sunday.

Toyarena.

According to Toyarena and several other websites, this thing retails for over a hundred smackers and I got it - and hold on to your britches, boys and girls - for five dollars. Clearly, the Nerd Gods like me. The Strike Freedom Gundam is a beast of a model that when completed, will measure 1.7 feet in height and just shy of 2 in width. I've never watched Gundam SEED, but this sucker looks like a real badass!

Progress, however, has been slow. I'm not going to lie, my enthusiasm for this project has been sapped a bit by the amount of wire work required. You see, the thing comes with LEDs for the head, arms, and chest, and it took several hours just to assemble the head (which required assembly of its light and battery compartment), right arm, and base (another battery compartment assembly). The latter came with two long, flat metal pieces that run up from the base to the pole that the Gundam will sit on. I'm going to work on it again tomorrow and try to put the left arm together and make progress on whatever comes after that.

I have no idea where the heck I'm going to put it. I don't even want to consider that yet.

In which I almost stopped reading The Honor of the Queen

Because of one section. I'll explain it after the jump, to spare anyone who might become uncomfortable by it. Also, spoilers. Suffice to say, however, I almost quit reading the book for good.

RIP Caroline John

Admittedly, I wasn't aware of who she was until just now, which is unfortunate. John played Liz Shaw, the Third Doctor's first companion on Doctor Who. She died today at age 71.

xkcd's Exoplanets will make you feel small

xkcd.

Imagine if just some of those planets contained the right conditions for life and some of those had life. While not a believing in the UFO/alien abduction nonsense, I do wholeheartedly believe that there is life in the universe - it's simply too vast for there not to be. If, on the other hand, we are the only living things in this great big mess, then it is the most tragic thing ever and something worth weeping over.

Now, if you really want to feel insignificant, hit the jump.

I actually forgot that they were making an Ender's Game movie

Tor.com.

Or that there was a production blog on Tumblr. In case you weren't aware of the movie, it stars Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff and some kid named Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin. Jimmy Pinchak and Abigail Breslin (the only name, aside from Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, and Harrison Ford that I recognize) play Peter and Valentine Wiggin, respectively. Meanwhile, Kingsley will be playing the legendary Mazer Rackham, and Bean will be played by a kid named Aramis Knight.

Here's to hoping the movie won't suck when it comes out Fall 2013.

Christ, David Weber writes brutal space battles

Reading The Honor of the Queen yesterday and got to one of the space battles and while not an overly long affair, it was pretty intense and brutal.

And I'm just under the halfway mark. I may have to turn to hard drink to cope, if there are any other battles in the book, and there probably are.

Things worth checking out

A list of interesting blog posts:

• EXONAUTS! has a helpful post for anyone looking to create their own starships, be it for gaming, fiction, or real world use.
• A Fantasy Reader reports that ebooks made more money during the first quarter of this year than hardcovers, but both were thoroughly trounced by paperback.
• Meanwhile, GAMMA WORLD WAR! has a most interesting post about how, during World War II, the Swiss basically booby-trapped the living hell out of their country as a precaution against possible German invasion. You'd think the fact that every household in a nation of several million people being legally required to own a firearm would be enough of a deterrent, but I guess you can never be too careful.
• And here's a list of five of the strangest exoplanets ever, via popcorndoorknob.

I've seem to have caught a meme

There's a meme going around lately wherein you post what you've just read, what you're reading right now, and what you plan on reading next. It looks fun, so what the hell, hit the jump to see my selection.

Sci-fi movies get a bit pulpy

A chap named Tim Anderson created pulp book covers based on three classic science fiction movies - Aliens, Blade Runner, and The Matrix. I like them, especially the way they each have wear damage, just like an old paperback you would find at a thrift shop.

You can check out the rest over at Poster Collective. h/t to fuck yeah, science fiction.

Image inspiration: Jack Houston and the Necronauts

Saw this on Jay's EXONAUTS! blog. It's the cover for a potential point-and-click computer game by Warbird Games, which they describe as "...a traditional point & click graphic adventure game set in an Edgar Rice Burroughs/Frank Frazetta inspired sci-fi world of bubble helmets, rockets ‘n ray guns!" Sounds fun, provided it gets made. Warbird is currently running a fundraiser on IndieGoGo (a Kickstarter-esque website) and while their goal is modest, $1999, they're currently sitting at $899 with only 12 days to go. Going by the concept art, which is both on their IndieGoGo page and their website, it looks like it might be an interesting game. Honestly, I think it probably would work better as a tabletop RPG, but that's just my opinion.

As for the inspiration part, the picture is the kind of adventure scifi that I've itching to write at some point soon. Space suits, ray or laser guns, mostly ignoring hard science in favor of entertaining adventures, the sort of thing that seems to be missing from most sci-fi lit nowadays.